


With a Promise to Return

by Sliceofmooncake (Aesoteric)



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, F/M, Pseudo-History
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-21
Updated: 2017-03-21
Packaged: 2018-10-08 15:11:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10389564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aesoteric/pseuds/Sliceofmooncake
Summary: A brief stop on the Tour of the Historical Great Plains. (AKA, Ferelden history with a slight Arthurian twist)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Semi-academic, pseudo-historical bit of DAI with lots of talking and not much else. Now, where have we seen this before?

Aaaand finally we come to the last stop on our tour for today. I know, I know, I can hear you all wishing I had a few more moldy old monuments to throw at you before we head back for lunch, but I promise to make this one even drier to make up for the lack. Our final stop on Historical Tours of the Plains is---the tree. Yes, that tree. I can see from your reactions we must have some Lit majors with us, or at least a few people who remember grade school.

Before we get any more excited I have to tell you that this is one site where we are not technically allowed to leave this bus. Once upon a time you would have been able to walk right up to it, but due to an increasing amount of vandalism by tourists over the years, the Dalish have ruled that no outsider is to “set foot” in this area: hence the bus. Do take advantage of the windows, they’re huge.

As I was saying, this is reported to be the tree of legend where the greatest mage of our time was bound in an enchanted sleep. From bark samples we obtained, we have been able to date the tree to at least a thousand years of age, so even if Solas isn’t underneath this particular tree, there’s a good chance that he at least ran into the sapling if he was ever in the area.

I’m not going to recount all the legends attached to the name Solas because that is a doctoral paper and several books too long, but to refresh your memories he has been credited with stopping the spread of the Red Lyrium Plague, visiting the Fade in the flesh, and toppling a pantheon of tyrannical would-be gods. Looks pretty good on a resume, don’t you think? There are millions of different versions of what might have actually happened, but given the multitude of contemporary sources that mention the name ‘Solas’, there is a good chance that he (or several people bearing the same title) did in fact exist.

I’m guessing that if the educational system hasn’t had a major overhaul in recent years, some of you will remember reading at least a section or two of Tellefson’s epic poem “With a Promise to Return”. I will take that groan as a ‘yes’. I would like to respectfully suggest to the younger people on this bus that you have no idea how good you’ve got it: I actually had to memorize passages.

‘Where the willows weep and shiver  
The little breezes brush and quiver  
Down the road that runs forever’---

What, you don’t want to hear all 84 verses? I’m shocked. 

Anyway, Tellefson’s poem describes the last days and final imprisonment of the mage Solas by his mysterious female companion, who has had so many different names that I won’t even bother mentioning them. Tellefson believed, as did most of his circle, that in his old age Solas was seduced by a young woman who tricked him into revealing the greatest secrets of his magic before she turned them against him. However, she was not entirely successful, as the curse she aimed at him became sleep rather than death, with the understanding that he would be able to awaken when he was needed.

This is the the favored version of events by many great dusty, literary types, but by no means the only one that has been suggested. If you’ve been in a bookstore in the last, oh, ten years, you’ve probably run into a certain best-selling pseudo-historical fantasy novel with a very nice cover---that’s the one. Has anybody got a copy with them? Wow, I was joking, but you really do. Yes, Zimmer’s re-telling of the story is markedly different, and there is a rumor---and just a rumor, mind you, I’m not confirming anything---that she actually based it on the tale she learned from the Dalish. The funny thing is that the most unbelievable part about all of this so far has been that the Dalish would willingly speak to anyone who isn’t one of them. But moving on.

Solas’ female companion has been described as a student of his, a rival mage out to eliminate the competition, or even a spirit of the forest bound to his service with a magical shackle. All of these make for very pretty stories but didn’t give us coherent background about her until Zimmer’s work came along. It may interest you to know that the clan that maintains stewardship of this area claim to be descendents of this same woman. What our Dalish hosts _have_ been willing to tell us is that the guardianship of this particular tree is an inherited duty passed down from generation to generation, and no one outside the clan is considered worthy of it. 

For those of you who haven’t read it, Zimmer---and maybe the Dalish, who knows---believes that in his advanced age Solas actually gave up magic out of weariness. ‘He put aside his books and his machinations and found some peace walking in the green with his lady-love’. Being nearly immortal, he had become so old that all the color had gone out of living, and eventually he asked for her help. ‘He taught her the charm and bade her sing it over him, for he was weary with age and much care. Weeping, she did, and singing, closed his eyes with a magical sleep until such time as he had grown young again.’ Now, she would have to have been a mage of some talent to pull off this kind of spell, not to mention convincing a giant tree to grow overtop of him. If she was a spirit of the forest, as some suggest, perhaps she even became the tree herself.

Now, just to ground us all in reality a bit, the Dalish do traditionally honor their dead by planting trees, so it is possible that someone of great import to them is in fact buried here, but as they refuse to allow excavation of the area or use of ground-penetrating radar, we may never know for sure. Ah, and if those men approaching are any indication we have used up our allotted time here. (Sir, please don’t take pictures of the Dalish, they consider it offensive; there will be postcards and traditional Dalish crafts available for purchase later in the trip). Right, that concludes our tour for this morning. The trip back to the hotel should take us approximately 45 minutes, which should get you there in plenty of time for that buffet you’ve heard so much about. I hope you enjoyed your visit to the Historic Plains, thank you all.


End file.
